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The 25th Annual Popcorn Festival is today here in Valparaiso, and I have got the penthouse view of it all. The festival, which includes several blocks of vendor booths lining both sides of the streets, takes place directly downtown which–surprise, surprise–is right where my apartment sits!

This morning, the Popcorn Parade ran from 10:00 to 11:30, right below my window! I could see the parade coming up one street out my side window, and watch it all the way as it passed right outside my front window! How cool. For a detailed description of the parade, CLICK HERE.

I can sit in my apartment and just watch people swarm the streets… there are so many people here. This is so neat, to overlook this big bustle of activity. (Unfortunately, I really need to do some reading for school, so I can’t just sit and people-watch all day, although it is really tempting.) Grandpa and Grandma would love this; you really could people-watch for many hours right from the comfort of my own living room!

There are hundreds of vendor booths set up for the Festival. Oddly enough, though, there isn’t one single booth selling giant tenderloins! Giant Tenderloins are my favorite part of street fairs and festivals, so I’m really disappointed. Plus, there’s not even a single stand selling carmel apples! Can you believe it? How can you even allow a festival without giant tenderloins and carmel apples? Is that legal? Oh well.

On a very positive note, there is a booth set up just a few booths away from my apartment door that is selling homemade cookies of all flavors. I bought some M&M cookies and some Oatmeal Butterscotch, and they are heavenly. They’re so soft they fall apart when you pick them up. Now that’s good eatin’.

Do you remember those commercials from TV that used to run several years ago, that sold CD’s by Zamfir, the guy who played that odd instrument called the “panflute”? Apparently, Valpo is a hotspot for the panflute community. There are many, many booths selling CDs and cassettes of various panflute-ish instrumentations, and many booths that are playing that music (very loudly). At one of the courthouse corners, there are a couple of native american-looking folks who are actually playing those instruments live. Let me tell you, they are NOT any more pleasant live than on TV! I’m not a panflute fan.

I hope that next year, they trade in a panflute booth for a giant tenderloin booth.

The other big items are fake plants, wooden furniture (benches, cabinets, stools, etc.), “hand painted” anything, tie-dyed clothes, and sterling silver (or faux sterling) jewelry. Nothing too extraordinary, really. It’s pretty much your standard festival or street fair offerings. (Waaaay better than Ossian Days, I must say; at least there is a fairly wide variety of booths and goods being sold, and the booths really have more a of craft-show feel than a hillbilly haven feel).

People actually bring their own shopping carts with them, so that they can load them up with their purchases! Lots of folks are toting carts of some sort, or huge (HUGE) mesh bags to carry their purchases. Folks come here to SHOP, like you’d do at a mall at Christmastime. This isn’t just a “browse and see” setting; people are here to spend some dough. I think the vendors must make a good profit over the weekend (today and tomorrow).

There is an elderly gentleman playing the accordion right below my apartment right now. It’s actually pretty, sort of Italian-sounding music. He doesn’t appear to be with any group, I think he’s just here playin’ the accordion. How cool. I love my apartment.

I toured the booths this morning at 8:30ish (they opened at 7:00!), and there were a couple of people out who had tiny, tiny doggies. One woman had one of those dogs like was recently featured in the National Enquirer, where the dog is about the size of my foot, and has long hair so that her little eyes are almost covered by her bangs and her feet are hardly visible. Such a cute dog. (It wasn’t quite as crowded yet at 8:30 so the dog wasn’t in danger of getting trampled.)

The other tiny dog looked like a pinscher, but like someone washed it in hot water and dried it. Like a shrinky-dink pinscher. LOL It was so tiny, but like Ernie, he didn’t KNOW he was that small, and he stood like a big dog and held himself all proud, like he really thought he was somethin’. Too funny.

From 12:00 to 6:30 there are two stages set up downtown each playing live music. One stage is oldies-type music, and the other is more modern rock. The oldies stage is close to me, and they’ve got a Beatles tribute band that sounds freakishly like the actual Beatles! This is great. I’m getting a free “Live Beatles” concert, and I don’t even have to leave my apartment!

This is so fun.

I’m going to get a book out and see if I can’t plow through some reading without getting distracted…that could be difficult!

Apefully yours,
Boolar The Ape

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